Communicating climate change impacts as manifested in extreme weather: A case of newspapers’ reports in Nigeria

Abstract

This paper examines the public reports on extreme weather events and climate change in Nigeria. The investigation was conducted to show how national media have been reporting extreme weather events in Nigeria. The report on extreme weather events from two major national dailies were assessed. The results showed that extreme weather events reports are not properly described by most national media. The total articles of extreme weather events reported by Vanguard newspaper were 118 and 78 were from the Punch newspaper over the period. The percentages of specific extreme events reported during the study period by the Vanguard are—Flood (75.42%), Rainstorm (21.19%), Windstorm (3.39%), but no report for thunderstorm and drought, while the Punch reported 66.67% of Flood cases, Rainstorm (28.21%), Windstorm (3.84%), thunderstorm (1.28%), but no report for drought. The study concludes that more actions should be taken to sensitize the public about the occurrences of weather events, which is frequent nowadays as evidence of change in the climate.